


Beetle in a Box

by Lobelia321



Series: Arthropods [4]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-30
Updated: 2013-04-30
Packaged: 2017-12-10 01:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobelia321/pseuds/Lobelia321
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The room is dark.  Everything is alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beetle in a Box

**Author's Note:**

> An experiment with style. And oh, I love my new Dorling Kindersley Illustrated Oxford Dictionary, *sigh*.

Title: Beetle in a Box

Series: Fourth in the Arthropods series; follows "Spiders in the Bin".

Author: Lobelia <lobelia40@yahoo.com>

Website: http://www.geocities.com/lobelia321/

Pairing: Dominic Monaghan / Karl Urban

Rating: G

Summary: The room is dark. Everything is alive.

Feedback: Yes, please, I would love feedback! Anything, even if it's only one line, one word!

Content/Warnings: RPS

Spoilers: None whatsoever.

Archive Rights: Beyond the Fellowship. My niche. Anyone else, please just ask.

Disclaimers: This is a work of amateur fiction. I do not know these people. I am not making money. The events described in this story did not happen.

Author's Notes: An experiment with style. And oh, I love my new Dorling Kindersley Illustrated Oxford Dictionary, *sigh*.

\----------------

The house is dark. Nothing moves. The air is cool but the bricks in the wall give off remnants of diurnal heat.

Karl scratches his fingernails along the bricks until they hit the aluminium jamb of Dominic's bedroom window. The aluminium doesn't glint. There is no moon. There is only the luminous diffusion of clouds and city-glow.

'Knock, knock, knock.'

That's Karl, softly tapping against the window pane. Brick dust sprays from underneath his fingernails.

Nothing happens.

'Knock, knock.'

A head appears behind the glass. It is visible as a blue-grey oval. It is Dominic's head. Karl smiles at Dominic's head. He makes open-the-window gestures with his right hand. He can't use his left hand. His left hand is holding something. Something small.

We hear a sound of scraping, and the window swings open. It nearly knocks Karl sideways.

"Look out," says Karl redundantly.

"Hello, Karl," says Dominic in a confused, night-time voice. "It's a bit early, isn't it?"

"This is the time you normally have to get up," says Karl.

"Yes, but it's not normally. It's Sunday."

"I've brought you a present."

"Oh," says Dominic. "Where is it?"

"Let me in," says Karl.

Dominic moves to the side of the window. Karl hoists himself over the sill. There is a 'plonk' and a "shit" as he lands half on the floorboards, half on the foot of Dominic's bed. A stack of coins topples off the dresser. Karl and Dominic listen to the money going round and round like spinning tops and fall over, one by one, with ding-ding-dings.

Karl straightens up. Dominic is a shadowy shape on the bed. Objects loom in Dominic's room. Karl can't tell what they are: chairs? wardrobes? sleeping baboons? They are lifeless things, left-overs from daytime.

"I would have got here earlier," says Karl. "But I got lost."

"You walked all the way?" says Dominic's voice in the darkness.

"Yeah. I got lost near those crescent roads. They all circle in on themselves. It took bloody hours."

"And you call me weird," says Dominic.

"Maybe it's catching," says Karl.

He makes tentative footsteps around the dark dangerous corners of Dominic's bed. He's still got the something in his left hand. Now the something is sliding across the quilt at Dominic.

"It's the matchbox," says Dominic. "It's the matchbox you borrowed."

"That's only the container," says Karl. "The present's inside. But hang on, don't open it yet. You need light."

"There's only the overhead light," says Dominic.

"You haven't got a bedside lamp?"

There is a moment's silence. Noone wants to turn on the overhead light.

"Have you still got the matches?" says Dominic.

Karl smiles in the darkness. We can't see the smile but we can hear the smile in his next sentence: "Yeah, I have. I've got 'em in my pocket here." There is a low scraping sound, made by the matches patted by Karl's hand in the pocket of Karl's trousers. They form a scrunched-up ball in his pocket. They must have been scrunching all the way here.

"Well," says Dominic.

"Well what?" asks Karl.

"Well, get in," says Dominic.

"Get in what?" says Karl.

"The bed," says Dominic.

There's a shuffling sound as Dominic makes space. Then there's a 'kerplunk, bedunk': Karl's shoes landing on the floorboards. Then there's a 'shwf, shwf': Karl's socks being pulled off Karl's feet and landing 'thwup' next to the shoes.

"I need you to hold the matches," says Dominic as Karl shuffles his bottom into the mattress and under the quilt.

"Nice," Karl says. "You've pre-warmed it for me."

The bed is not hugely narrow but narrow enough. It's narrow enough to press shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, knee to knee, calf to calf. Karl rolls his shoulder. Dominic rolls his shoulder back. Dominic shrugs his hip into Karl's hip. The matches in Karl's pocket go 'crunch'. Karl pulls at the quilt, Dominic pulls it back and waves the matchbox about.

Karl says, "Careful of the box. Don't shake it."

"I wonder what it is," says Dominic. He sounds excited. His dark voice in the dark room sounds like an excited birthday morning. "Where are the matches?"

Karl grinds his match-crunching hip against Dominic's again. He's also excited. He's got gift-giving glee. He crunches his hip again.

"Okay," says Dominic. Now there follows a balancing act. One of Dominic's hands balances the matchbox, the other hand digs around in Karl's pocket. This is not fantastically easy. Pockets are best explored while upright, in a vertically relaxed position. When folded over, pockets are traps for fingers. Especially other people's pockets. Fingers must scrabble and dig, fingers must catch at matchheads only just and claw sticks out one by one.

It takes about five minutes for Karl's pocket to be emptied. No sound is heard, only two people's breathing and the woody 'chick, chick' of matchsticks landing in a heap. A small pyre grows on the quilt over Karl's groin. Not all of the matchsticks have survived the scrabbling. Half of them are snapped or cracked.

"It's a good thing they're kitchen matches," says Dominic. "They're longer."

The first match goes 'tchk' against the rough strip at the side of the box. A flame erupts. It is orange around the outside and turquoise at the centre, and at the very centre it glows red because that is the sulphuric matchhead. Shadows invent themselves on the walls. The room grows by about thirty percent.

"What's that sound?" says Karl, as if the activation of one sense has also triggered off another.

"What sound?" says Dominic.

"Nnnnnnnnn," says Karl in a high-pitched voice. He sounds like a dentist's drill. "Mozzie in your room."

"It won't come near us," says Dominic. "We've got fire. Can I open my present?"

"Shit, ow," says Karl. The flame eats at his finger. Karl shakes the match furiously. Smoke curls into their nostrils.

'Tchk.' Next match.

"Quick, go," says Karl.

The flame illuminates the matchbox. It also illuminates Dominic's face. Dominic looks at the matchbox. Karl looks at Dominic's face. The flame flickers. Dominic's face lights up orange and turquoise.

"Oh," says Dominic.

He has slid open the box. Inside, there is a small beetle. The beetle is squat and compact. It has six folded legs, fibrillar antennae, a fat comfortable thorax, and green shiny elytra covering its delicate hind wings. The green shiny elytra form the beetle's back. They are its top wings. They are an iridescent jade-green. They are made up of a million minuscule flakes that shimmer and shine. They are a thousand shimmering gemstones: jade emerald hiddenite malachite peridot moldavite azurite and, most strange of all, oily chrysoberyl. It is like gazing into a miniature oil slick. Orange and turquoise dance on the beetle's back.

The beetle crouches quietly. Its feelers wiggle. It is a little coleopterous miracle.

"Shit," says Karl and blows on his scalded thumb. The flame gutters. Karl is patting the quilt frantically. Sparks fly up between his fingers.

"Careful, mate," says Dominic. "Don't get distracted."

"I'm not," lies Karl. He tchks another match.

"I found it on my doorstep," he says. "Well, just outside the door. Next to the gas thing."

"What's it called?"

"I don't know," says Karl. "Greenus beetlus. You're the expert."

"I don't know species," says Dominic. "I should. Is it a special New Zealand beetle?"

"No idea. It's a beautiful beetle," says Karl. "Do you like it?"

This time Karl remembers to extinguish the match in time and to re-ignite the flame.

"I thought you weren't that fond of invertebrates," says Dominic.

"I like some. And there aren't hundreds and hundreds of this one," says Karl. "It's unique. It's one of a kind."

"Not too unique, I hope," says Dominic. "It might want to mate."

"True," says Karl. "But I think there might be at least one other greenus beetlus."

Greenus beetlus stirs in its cardboard prison. Dominic slides the box almost shut and peers at the feelers poking through the slit.

"Thank you for my present," says Dominic.

The flame goes out.

"What are you going to do with it?" asks Karl. "Feed it to the spider?" His hands are stirring the matchsticks. Now that the beetle is no longer in orange-and-turquoise view, his hip feels numb. The bed is not comfortable. The mattress is rock-hard.

"No," says Dominic. "I think I'll set it free. I'd like to see how it flies."

"You don't want to keep it?"

"You can't _keep_ insects," says Dominic.

"You could. You could keep them in a box or an ant farm or something."

"You don't need to keep them. They're always around, anyway."

Karl lights another match. The flame is hot and small. Karl looks at Dominic.

Karl says, "Yeah, set it free. It's a good excuse for me to find it and give it to you again tomorrow."

"Okay, here goes," says Dominic. He slides open the box. They look at the beetle expectantly. The beetle doesn't move. Is it playing dead? No, it's waving its antennae. Now it's wriggling its six leglets. There is a rasping sound, a tiny scrabbling sound, a whirr-whirr, and greenus beetlus is off.

It flies around in mad zigzag patterns. 'Bock', goes its head against the window pane. It is a crazy, whirring presence in the room. Dominic gets up on his knees and opens the window wider. The lunatic beetle continues dive-bombing through the room. Whenever it crosses the path of the match flame, hopping shadows flit along the walls. Dominic listens for the buzzing hind wings. Here it comes again, threatening to 'bock' itself against the window. Dominic's hand shoots out. He captures it. He throws it out into the air. A beetle-shaped silhouette can be seen against the bright night sky.

The match goes out. Dominic and Karl are alone in the bed.

"Here's the box back," says Dominic.

"It's your box. Keep it. Here, I'll stuff the matches back in."

Some laborious match-stuffing ensues. There's a funny thing about matches: when you buy them, they all lie in that box in straight military rows. But when you stuff them back in after spillage, they baulk and play fiddlesticks. In the end, you have to shove the lid across by force and put up with a misshapen, buckly box.

All of this takes rather a long time. Especially as it has to happen in the dark. Karl pats the quilt for any lone matches. Dominic pats it, too, and their hands meet in the middle. They pull them back so fast the box clutters to the floor. There's a 'pickety-pockety' sound: the matches. They have all fallen out again.

"Why don't you stay here?" says Dominic. "It's too far to go back now."

"Okay," says Karl.

"You can sleep on the floor; there's a rug." For one second, Karl actually moves to get out of the bed. Dominic laughs and grabs Karl's T-shirt. "Only joking," he says. "Stay in here on the pre-warmed side."

"I'll just take off my jeans," says Karl.

"Yes," says Dominic. "Sleeping in jeans is uncomfortable."

We hear quite a bit of commotion in the dark. The bed creaks. The quilt rustles. Then there is a 'thwd', and the jeans fall to the floor. They join socks, shoes, matchsticks.

"Right," says Karl and nestles down.

"Do you need a pillow?" asks Dominic.

"Is that your foot?" says Karl.

Dominic yawns. Karl turns over onto his side, facing Dominic. Dominic turns over onto his back. Karl turns over onto his other side, facing the room. Dominic turns over, too. Their backs breathe against one another. One or two stray matches roll off the covers and make a 'plink' sound as they hit the floorboards.

There are other noises as well. The room is full of them. Tiny scuttlings, tiny whirrings, lost rustlings. Maybe spiders spinning their webs. Maybe moths batting their wings. Ants lugging crumbs. Flies digesting shit. Cockroaches scurrying. Mosquitoes humming. Microscopic mites eating their way through the debris in human eyelashes.

The room is dark. Everything is alive.

"Are you awake?" whispers Karl.

\--------------

29 July 2002

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